7/27/2019 Gorgeous Lies -- Discussion Guide
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Reading Group Guide
Gorgeous Lies
By Martha McPhee
About the book:
Acclaimed by critics, Martha McPhees debut Bright Angel Time
established her as a dazzling new
talent in American fiction; she fulfills her promise and breaks
ambitious new ground with Gorgeous
Lies. Charismatic therapist Anton Furey is dying, and the tribe
he heads-his five children, his wifes
three, and their uniting child, Alice-has returned to Chardin,
the farm where they grew up and played
out Antons vision of communal living. They had been famous for
being the new American blended
family, their utopian lifestyle chronicled by film crews and
reporters. But as Anton grows weaker, the
hurts and betrayals of those years boil to the surface, and the
children find themselves reliving the
knotty intimacies they share as they struggle to make their
peace with Anton. With shimmering prose
and an acutely observant eye, McPhee has created a portrait of
an era and a family that explores
the limits, and obligations, of love.
About the author:
Martha McPhee is the author ofBright Angel Time, a New York
Times Notable book, and coauthor
with Jenny and Laura McPhee of Girls. She teaches at Hofstra
University and lives in New York City.
Discussion Questions:
Q. Gorgeous Lies opens with the statements: "They loved Anton.
Every single one of them." How do
Antons wife, former wife, children, step-children, and others
show that love? How is each persons
love for Anton unique? What obstacles or contraries are there to
the love each has for Anton?
Q.There is a saying that "you can take the man out of the
Jesuits but you cant take the Jesuits out
of the man." How applicable is this saying to Anton and his life
during all the years after he leaves
the Jesuits? What is the role of religion and faith in Antons
life and the lives of his children and step-
children?
Q.What is the effect of the authors narration of events out of
chronological sequence? How does
McPhee influence our responses to characters and events by
shifting among various levels of time,
ranging from Antons childhood to the months and years following
his death? How might McPhees
storytelling technique reflect the dynamics of thought, feeling,
and memory within the Furey-Cooper
family?
Q.What is the extent of Antons control over the members of his
family? How would you explain the
power of his personality and the willingness of all family
members to focus on him before themselves
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and their own needs? How true is the statement that "this was
not, under the reign of Anton, .a
society of individuals"? How would you describe "the reign of
Anton"?
Q. We are told that everyone in the Furey-Cooper household "had
at least one lock on his or her
door" and that "all over the house, as it happened, there were
keys." What is the significance of
locks and keys in relation to each family member? What kinds of
psychological and emotional locksdoes each install, and what is the
provenance of the "rainbow of keys" in relation to those locks?
What "master key" might exist to all those locks, and who
possesses that key?
Q. What is the significance of the statement that long ago Agnes
"had accepted and forgiven"
Antons betrayals? What instances of betrayal and of acceptance
and forgiveness are there in the
novel? What importance does McPhee place on forgiveness and
reconciliation?
Q.We are told that fairy tales are Alices belief; "her father
always taught her to believe in the
possibility of the impossible." To what extent has this been
Antons primary teaching to all his
children and step-children? How has belief in the possibility of
the impossible influenced all their
lives, including those of Anton and his wives? Under what
circumstances might it be advisable orappropriate to believe in the
possibility of the impossible"?
Q. In his 1971 proposal for establishing "an organic community,"
Anton states that "we hope to grow
by giving up our manipulative, dishonest game playing." To what
extent does this actually happen?
What instances of manipulation and "game playing" occur? To what
extent does "manipulative,
dishonest game playing" affect every family, and how might it be
corrected?
Q.How does Antons attitude toward sex and sexuality, sexual
repression, and sexual expression
determine his behavior within the family? To what extent are his
theories a justification for, or
rationalization of, his own behavior? What do the excerpts from
his notes reveal about his thinking
and his attitudes?
Q. As Anton approaches and then suffers through his final
illness, he thinks about his still-unfinished
book, with its various titles. Why do you think Anton never
finishes his book? What is the significance
that, in Alices view, the book "added up to this-a few collages
and crates of notes, more debris at
the foot of his deathbed"? How should we understand Eves final
thoughts?-"His book was all around
her. His book was here. It was him, and she defied the wind to
tell her that that wasnt something."
Q. Saying goodbye to her father, Alice thinks, "For twenty-five
years this family has tried to be a
family." In what ways has the family succeeded or failed? Why
has it fallen upon Alice, the youngest,
to be her familys "savior"? Why do you think it falls upon her
to be the one to "kill" her father? Is her
action justified? Why does Alice refer to the Anton to whom she
administers the morphine as "thisimposter"?
Q. In what ways is the story of Anton and the Furey-Cooper
family an illustration of "lives affecting
effecting infecting other lives"?
Q. "What is it we all want anyway?" Sophia asks, and then
answers her own questions: "Love, of
course. We all want love." How does McPhee present the theme of
everyones desire to be loved?
